THE QUIET THINGS THAT NO ONE EVER KNOWS

A guy is standing in a crowded room, just off centre stage, and all the focus is on the band.

The guy wishes he could sing – and I mean really sing, like the ones who even scream beautifully, but at the same time, he doesn’t. He loves being a fan. If he could actually sing like that, it’s likely his appreciation would be of a different kind, and he would never trade that feeling. Nowhere else in life does he feel so overcome with awe.

Okay, I’m the guy. ✋🏼

And this is exactly how I feel whenever I experience the majesty that is musical fusion.

Well, pregnancy is a similar setup in many ways. Yes, being one half of a pregnant couple means I’m actually in the band, but I’m the half whose decision-making privileges have been removed, and whose relevance in the household has been shot down to the number three spot. I like to think of myself as the roadie for the band. I’m responsible for heavy lifting and managing the environment and the equipment, but, I get to watch someone from real close do something I can not, and it’s pretty phenomenal.

The only real difference would be the crazy amount of sex being had in an actual band compared to my little family band.

Sadly, sex is the reason one of my favourite bands postponed the show they were meant to do in London last Saturday – a show I’ve been waiting for ever since I first discovered their music back in 2004.

Now ideally, I would have preferred to fire off a fair few posts of How to be a human before taking on the most angst inducing subject of the entire experience, but other people’s sex business messed up my pursuit of pleasure through musical appreciation, and subsequently I had nothing better to do this week.

In 2003, a then 15 year-old girl was allegedly coerced into sending some nude pictures of herself to a then 23 year-old man – the frontman of Brand New – Jesse Lacey. This story surfaced two weeks ago.

As far as I know nothing has been proven, nor admitted – other than in an online statement which apologizes for various sexual fouls stretching over nearly 15 years. The angry mob is launching devastating attacks on their digital battlegrounds, closely followed by the trolls, who can once again recycle the same jokes and memes used at the expense of Kevin Spacey and Louis C.K. and all the others, with just a bit of editing.

Add these offences to the usual circus of harassment, infidelity, crimes of passion, off-the-chart levels of overarching social anxiety, and it makes me wonder…

Why the fuck are we getting a basic part of life so horribly wrong so god damn always?

The prospect of having a daughter and having to explain to her the concept of sex in the 21st century now exhausts me. It won’t suffice just explaining how she works on a basic level while protecting her from my own fears and anxiety, no. I now have to mentally prepare her for life alongside a large number of human beings, who are all over the place when it comes to sex.

Hey sweetheart, it’s time to have a chat. So, you’ve probably noticed some humans engaging in a particular activity, and it might look pretty complicated, but rest assured – it’s actually quite straightforward. When a man and a woman perform this activity under the right circumstances, the woman may become pregnant, and a few months later a little baby human is born.

We’re not quite sure why we can make little copies of ourselves, we just know we have a strong instinct to want to survive, and not just individually, but as a species. Having sex with another person can be absolutely fantastic, and obviously when something is pleasurable it is therefore more frequently desired. The reason for this fun factor likely has to do with the evolution of our ancestors, and the random development of a heightened sensory reaction to sex. This caused them to have sex more frequently and with more people, thus ensuring the survival of their genes in the generations to come.

Of course, nature has no agenda – it’s just an ongoing game of cause and effect, and since no one will ever win in this game, we just need to enjoy it and appreciate that our actions have consequences.

When it comes to sex, there are a few consequences to consider. You know why daddy takes the young rams away from the rest of the sheep at 3 months age? It’s because a young ram will promptly start fancying his mother at the age of 3 months and one day. We’ve learned that this sort of familial ‘love’ will likely result in funny looking babies, and should be avoided in animals and humans alike.

Much like the young ram, when your body matures sexually, you will also start on a journey that might feel like sexual obsession at times. Don’t worry, this is happening to everyone, all the time. Just remember, actions have consequences and you need to protect yourself from your own biology. Even if you are physically capable of motherhood, childbirth at such a young age can be very dangerous for mother and baby alike. Having babies while you yourself are still growing should be considered “not the best”.

When you are older, grant others the same courtesy.

Now go get daddy a beer. Kisses.

This is where the conversation could have ended – a very simple algorithm, not a lot of room for error or unnecessary anxiety, alas, this has not been the standard sex-ed of the human species.

Do you believe sexual promiscuity is shameful? Do you believe you have to be a virgin when you get married? Do you believe women were created to tend to the needs of horny men? Do you believe homosexuality is an abomination? Do you believe multi-racial relationships are disgusting?

Rather unfortunately, our general ignorance around the time of 5000 BC, combined with our unique ability to talk about things that do not exist, resulted in the birth of a myriad of myths, reinforced over millennia by ridiculous religious teachings and human and gender ‘rights’. Every bit added on top of the objective truth with regards to sex made the whole equation more complicated. And what’s worse, it was all effectively made up by nomadic tribesmen, founders of religion, and ignorant self-serving powermongers.

Early bands of humans around the time of the agricultural revolution were primitive people, and I’m not sure there were many ‘rules of engagement’. Once the settlements grew bigger, they needed leaders, and the sex manual was probably edited to serve the interests of those in charge. Discrimination of all sorts must have been rife within their ranks. With the birth of the first religions, these discriminatory orders were no longer just the way of the assholes at the top, but the commandments of the gods in charge of prosperity and rain. Eventually, it became the will of the one creator. The punishment for sexual insubordination was no longer a backhand to the face, or a severe drought and swarms of locusts, but damnation.

And voila! Sex and fear and shame was now an inescapable Ménage à trois .

Our propensity to view ourselves as set apart from everything else in the universe resulted in some weird and wacky ideas, but eventually man didn’t just see himself as set apart from other creatures, but from other classes of men, from other races of men, and even more so, from women.

Today, the ignorance of our ancestors manifests itself as, among other things, unfounded sexual humiliation, confusion and anxiety, still compounded by a gender hierarchy. Sexuality is something to be ashamed of, and even more so if you were born with a vajayjay. Unfortunately, in the long overdue and ongoing women’s march to sexual liberty, most of the dialogue goes along the lines of: yoube less sexually depraved! No, you be more sexually depraved! Can’t we all just get along and be equally depraved?

I was turning 6 years old when, one afternoon, I put together a cunning plan. I knew that our housekeeper usually did the ironing in my bedroom at a certain time in the afternoon, and she would set up right next to my bed. So, I decided to lie in wait underneath. Sure enough, she followed her routine, and sure enough, once she started, I slid out on my back from behind her and took an extended peek up her dress.

I remember this vividly, probably because my little heart was beating like never before. I wasn’t even halfway to Matureville, but I knew exactly what I was doing, and for which reason. Coincidentally, this was also the moment I knew I wasn’t a racist.

Later on, when I started preschool, I remember playing with my friend Charlie and a group of girls. At one stage the girls told me and Charlie to lie down next to each other, and they assumed to jump over our heads and skip around to our feet and back, in a continuous loop. As this went on, they started lifting up their skirts more and more, seemingly aware of what they were doing, teasing and giggling.

Charlie and I both looked at each other as if to say holy shit, are we gonna get in trouble for this? Later on it was don’t care, best day ever. As I got older, there were many other instances of fascination, and after reaching my teens, stages of what can only be described as obsession, in the sense that most thoughts were dedicated to sex, even after I had my first sexual encounter. I never did anything malicious, but I can’t say there was never any collateral damage. I have only had sex with women, I think, and the times there might have been a moral dilemma at stake, it was very rarely on my end.

I can not agree to sexual preoccupation being shameful. I also refuse to believe that men are more preoccupied with sex than women.

Jesse Lacey is not a sexual deviant. He has roughly the same biology as everyone else, and yes I know – he’s not being condemned for his biology. I just look at this specific case and feel bad for everyone involved.

A young girl feels she was manipulated by a person she idolised, that he made it clear that her body was the only thing he wanted from her, and that he threatened to cut off her access to the band (she was a photographer) if she didn’t continue with the show.

Regardless of the truth, one of the worst things today is the fact that women could be held hostage through sex. How is this a thing? If men and women were equal in sex, these stories would cease to exist. There wouldn’t be any shame to dangle in front of someone’s face. It would be either no shame or equal shame. When women sleep their way to the top, it should be equally as awesome, or equally as disgusting. Make up your mind, but stop making shit up.

And with regards to Jesse, did he manipulate her using his position of ‘power’, being in a band? Yes, of course. There’s always manipulation of some sort. My wife and I still have to manipulate each other sometimes. Jesse wrote about these things all the time.

I’ve got desperate desires and unadmirable plans, my tongue will taste of gin and malicious intent. You’re using all your looks that you’ve thrown from the start, if you let me have my way I swear I’ll tear you apart. Cause it’s all you can be, you’re a drunk and you’re scared – it’s ladies night, all the girls drink for free.

The girl in the song isn’t the girl from the story – she was just 15, and that’s something else. The law is iron clad in this regard, but unfortunately people aren’t, and we should do our best, not because of our biology, but in spite of it.

Sorry pal, at fifteen you are too young to know anything. Even when you think you know you want something or understand something, you actually don’t know shit. Wait a few years.

Sorry pal, you’re over eighteen, you’re supposed to be a master of sex, biology and morality. Fuck off and die, I’m burning your cd’s.

I guess a person can always go for a bizarre thing called sex addiction therapy, and I believe he actually did. I wonder what a monkey would think if we tried to convince him he was a sex addict.

For me, as always, most things come down to education. We remain ignorant, because we can’t have conversations about sex. We are discouraged from talking about sex, because we treat it like a disease we’re ashamed of. We are ashamed of it because of indoctrination through ideologies, like religion. Religious ideology was warped by the self-serving agenda of the ignorant. The ignorance of 5000 BC has been perpetuated.

I guess if we are ever to end the war on sex, we have to change the way we’ve been programmed to think about it – get rid of the shame and anxiety and condescension, and be more human, or we can just continue pretending. The only thing parents are actively achieving when indoctrinating their children with bullshit is making every genre on Youporn appealing, and there’s some really weird shit on there.

If I ever had the chance to talk to that girl, I’d explain to her that wanting someone just for sex is the same as starting a fire just for heat – it’s not illogical and shouldn’t be immoral. It’s wonderful when you can evolve an initial attraction, but no one should ever feel they have the right to more from someone who doesn’t reciprocate. This is usually the part where someone hires a contract killer.

Love and respect, and all the other made up words that describe subjective feelings, only mean something to the individual, unless that meaning is shared in someone else’s imagination. You can’t expect someone to imagine the same thing you are imagining.

That’s why I’ll need to have that second chat with my daughter – about the things that might go on in someone else’s imagination. It would be so much better if people just said what they really feel. I guess I can always play her some Brand New.

One thought on “THE QUIET THINGS THAT NO ONE EVER KNOWS”

Your blogs are always interesting, and I always post links to them on the Warriors’ supporters forum. The religious ones demur of course, and that’s their right, but it invariably leads to a discussion. It seems that, like me, you started with a blog and ended with a website. Fun, isn’t it? Keep it up.